Asian drought damage reconstructed

Tree ring scientists Edward Cook (left) and Paul Krusic trekked for nearly two weeks to reach this 1,000-year-old hemlock in the Himalayas of Nepal during their 15-year research. (Brendan Buckley/Columbia University)

Friday, April 23, 2010
CBC News

Scientists at Columbia University's the Earth Institute and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have put together a 700-year record reconstructing the destruction caused by droughts that happened when the Asian monsoon resulted in less than normal rainfall.

The study, Asian Monsoon Failure and Megadrought during the Last Millennium, and the Monsoon Asia Drought Atlas published this week in the journal Science look at the seasonal weather system since 1300, its effects on the continent and how the monsoon's future might impact climate change.

While the monsoon feeds nearly half of the world's population when the rain does fall, when the monsoon fails to provide the usual amount of water and there is a drought, death and destruction are rampant, the study found.

Columbia scientists measured tree data from mature tree rings in 300 locations across the Asian continent, Siberia and northern Australia to come up with the findings.

For most tree species, rainfall determines the width of the species, resulting in annual growth rings, scientists said.

By studying the rings, scientists were able to determine that at least four major droughts led to the devastation in the continent and surrounding areas.

Drought led to fall of China's Ming dynasty

For example, a drought in northeastern China led to the 1644 fall of country's Ming dynasty.

Another drought occurred from 1756-1768, which coincided with the collapse of kingdoms in present-day Burma, Vietnam and Thailand.

The study also looked at the 1876-78 drought known as the "Great Drought," which resulted in widespread famine and the death of a record 30 million people in India, China and present-day Indonesia.

"Global climate models fail to accurately simulate the Asian monsoon, and these limitations have hampered our ability to plan for future, potentially rapid and heretofore unexpected shifts in a warming world," said Edward Cook, the head of Lamont's Tree Ring Lab who ran the study, said in a statement.

"Reliable instrumental data goes back only until 1950. This reconstruction gives climate modellers an enormous dataset that may produce some deep insights into the causes of Asian monsoon variability."

The study follows a similar report in March by the Lamont tree-ring team suggesting that dramatic differences in the monsoon may have influenced the collapse of the ancient Khmer civilization at Angkor — now known as Cambodia — nearly 600 years ago.

That paper, which appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the U.S., showed evidence of a mega-drought in the wider region around Angkor from the 1340s to the 1360s, followed by a more severe but shorter drought from the 1400s to the 1420s.

The droughts were combined with severe flooding, resulting in the kingdom's eventual collapse, researchers of that study found.

The research for the latest study was funded by the U.S National Science Foundation.

North Korea on brink of famine after floods-study

SEOUL, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Destitute North Korea will likely be pushed into famine due to devastating floods this year that wiped out crops and ruined farm land, a South Korean state-run think-tank said on Thursday.

"The North's food inventory has almost hit the bottom, so unless there's an extraordinary measure to stabilise supply, there may be a situation next year similar to the late 1990s," a study by the Korea Rural Economic Institute (KREI) said.

Famine in the late 1990s brought about by flooding, drought and years of mismanagement in the farm sector killed as many as 10 percent of the North's 22 million people, according to some estimates.

The KREI study said North Korea will run about 1.4 million tonnes short of the food needed to feed its people and estimated damage to its farming sector at more than $275 million.

North Korea has said flooding in August was some of the worst to hit the country. It killed at least 600 people, left more than 300,000 homeless, destroyed thousands of buildings and wiped out more than 11 percent of its farm land, its official media said.

But another South Korean specialist in North Korean agriculture has said it was unlikely that the isolated state would soon slip back into famine because of a large increase in grain production over the past decade.

North Korea, which suffers from chronic food shortages, usually relies on handouts from neighbours South Korea and China to make up its food deficit and it receives food aid from international agencies such as the U.N. World Food Programme.

Chronic malnutrition among North Korean children remains a problem, but mass hunger has not set in, according to Michel Le Pechoux, UNICEF deputy representative in North Korea.

"Food and malnutrition is an issue, but to say that people are starving, we do not have evidence of that," Le Pechoux told a news briefing in Geneva.

"I wouldn't qualify it as famine. I think the situation in the late 1990s and the situation now is very different," he said, adding it was "still fragile".

The last U.N. nutritional assessment, conducted in 2004, found that 37 percent of North Korean children were chronically malnourished, similar to rates in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, he said. That was far better than its 60 percent rate in the 1990s.

Malnutrition is linked not only to food supply but also dirty water that causes diarrhoea, Le Pechoux said.

UNICEF is currently undertaking nutritional assessment among people left homeless by the floods in 19 North Korean counties.

Aid workers have said the environment for supplying food aid to the country has improved due to Pyongyang's progress in implementing an international agreement to end its nuclear weapons programmes.

"In the past few months there has been a lot of progress on a number of issues," Le Pechoux said. "We are all quite happy with the current political climate and interaction with the government."

(Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva)

Ethnic monirity people in Ratanakiri are facing famine

Ethnic minority mother and child in a village in Ratanakiri. Almost 800 families of ethnic minority villagers are currently facing famine (Photo: Tharun Bun)

26 July 2007
By Ratha Visal
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

A high ranking official of the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM) declared that his committee needs exact number of people who are facing famine in Ratanakiri so that help relief can be provided to the actual victims.

Nhim Vannda, the first vice president of the NCDM, said on Thursday 26 July 2007 that he wants the provincial authority and local officials based in villages and communes to provide exact number of people who are facing famine, as well as the provincial authority’s ability to provide food or to seek help to save these people.

Nhim Vannda said: “I am asking the local authority to clearly evaluate the number of families who, for 100%, don’t have food at all, to determine their percentage, etc… And also (to tell us) how many cases the local authority has already handled. This voice will clearly show the actual number of needy (families).”

Nhim Vannda’s declaration was made following a report that about 70% of ethnic minority people are lacking rice for their daily consumption.

The Khmer Leu people association completed the tally of its research results on the number of ethnic minority families who are extremely poor and who currently don’t have rice to eat anymore in 8 districts, 14 communes, and 67 villages, where 768 families are being affected.

Mrs Phum Meas, an official of the management of the Khmer Leu association said: “Ethnic minority people … went to collect the information themselves, they went to interview and visited the locations. There are families who really need (rice), they (now) eat bamboo shoots, some eat manioc tubers instead of rice, they eat corn, potatoes to replace rice, the majority of them are eating these to substitute for rice.”

Nat Bun Heng, the director of the Ratanakiri provincial office, said: “We already reported to the NCDM, there are more than 2,000 families in Andoung Meas and Veun Say…”

On Monday, the Ratanakiri provincial authority as well as MPs for the province obtained 40-ton of rice from the government provincial department of social affairs to distribute in 2 communes in Veun Say district. According to provincial officials, up to now, there are no organizations or institutions which helped to provide aid to help these people yet.

Muong Poy, the Ratanakiri provincial governor, said also that the province does not have sufficient rice stock to distribute to needy villagers. He called on villagers to go look for work outside the province and to plant crops to help support the current need.

There is no report yet about people dying from this famine, however, the provincial authority recognized that some villagers went into the forest to collect precious wood to sell to buy rice to eat.

Famine in Ratanakiri, where is Bun Rany's Red Cross to the rescue?

Ethnic minority in Ratanakiri province are facing famine

Sunday, July 15, 2007
By Ratha Visal
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

An official of the Khmer Leu Association in Ratanakiri province claimed that, currently, ethnic minorities in almost all communes in the province are facing famine due to lack of rice for daily consumption.

Mrs Dam Chanthy, President of the Khmer Leu Association, said that her organization completed a survey on Friday on the group of villager families who no longer have rice to eat, however, she said that the total number of families who lack rice has not been tallied yet. Nevertheless, she said that about 70% of ethnic minority families are facing daily rice shortage.

Dam Chanthy said: “I am only reporting the information to the government and its partners, because I surveyed poor families, widower households, they just don’t have (rice to eat).”

During the 2006 rainy season, a lot of rains fell during the beginning of the rainy season, but at the end of the season, there was a shortage of rain water, several thousands of hectares of rice crops were damaged due to rot, insects infection, and the rice crop was damaged due to lack of water.

Em Sovann, the second councilor of the Nhang commune, Andoung Meas district, confirmed that since May, the villagers’ leftover rice was all depleted, and 90% of the more than 3,000 families of villagers living in this commune, are currently forced to eat potatoes , corn, or bamboo shoots instead.

Em Sovann said: “In some homes, when I went in, all that I saw was only boiled bamboo shoots, they don’t have anything else to eat at all. I feel really sorry for them.”

The Department of agriculture of the Ratanakiri province, said that there are 4 districts where the villagers have a more severe rice shortage. An anonymous provincial official said that based on the (survey) number, there is a shortage of about 1,000 tons of rice to help fulfill the need of ethnic minority villagers.

Muong Poy, the Ratanakiri provincial governor, confirmed that he received the report from a number of communes regarding the shortage of foods faced daily by ethnic minority villagers. He said that the province does not have sufficient food to distribute to the needy people, but he said that foods were distributed to those who have urgent need.

Muong Poy said: “We are discussing with involved organizations to help fill the shortage temporarily only, to give out sufficient food, we don’t have the ability to do that at all.”

According to survey in the villages made the Khmer Leu Association, it was found that the communes which are currently facing food shortage are: Sesan, Ya Tung, Nhang, Ta Lav, Kachong, Ta Veng and Cha Ung communes.

Nevertheless, the Khmer Leu Association confirmed that it will seek partner NGOs, and International charity groups to help provide food to help ease the famine faced by the villagers.